Tuesday, January 31, 2017

Eastward from Matanzas

Our kind hostess in Mantanzas found us
an adress to stay on our way to the southeast. It was only 44 kms, it
was a finca (farm) called 'La Coincidencia'. And it was. A romantic
place, where they have some cows and horses, grow their own
vegetables etc. But the most important was the ceramics workshop. Tey
make all kinds of pottery and huge vases, seem to give workshops for
groups as well.

Our dinner and breakfast was all 'home
grown' and delicious. We agreeably shared the table with a young
cycling Canadian couple, coming from the very remote west coast near
the Alaskan border. Of course we advised them to come cycling in
Europe, and visit Breda. They promised us to do so :-)

From there it was a 76 kms ride to
Playa Larga, the most northern beach in the Bay of Pigs. The ride was
long and not interesting. Had some stops for fruit juice and chats
with the locals.

Playa Larga is famous for the failed
landing of the contra-revolutianaries in 1961 (supported by the US,
under Kennedy). Memorials galore. Unless the 'help' of a jinetero (a
hussler, in touristic places they are a nuisance) we found a very
nice and clean casa particular. There are scores of them here, price
mostly 25 CUC (=€).

Next stop was Playa Giròn, a short
ride against the wind. A simple casa in a small, and boring sleeping
wide spread settlement, with a museum of the invasion and a big
hotel, which also was 'tote Hose'.

The day after brought us to Cienfuegos,
80 kms to the east. A busy and not unagreeable town, where we landed
in a very beautiful casa particar with Victor and Elena, right in the
historic centre. Like ourselves they are abuelo and abuela (grandpa
and -ma), which caused a lot of sharing :-) We spent an extra day
here.

Remarkable: there are ATM's here that
allow creditcards to take out cash! Until now our information was
that this is not possible in Cuba. We tried and it worked perfectly.

Next stop: Trinidad. A small, very
historic and very touristic, town. It was founded not long after the
discovery of the Americas and collected its wealth through the sugar
trade. Now it's a Unesco-heritage settlement, with one storey houses
along cobble-stone streets (impossible to ride a bike on). Here again
we spent an extra day, just another couple among the thousands of
tourists.